


The Hand in the Wasteland

by Domimagetrix



Series: Razwan Bahir, World Guardian [11]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Adult Language, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Contracts, Manipulative Relationship, Mind Games, Multi, Physical Restraint, Unhealthy Relationships, divergence from canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13097613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domimagetrix/pseuds/Domimagetrix
Summary: Razwan is given a choice - after a fashion - and then another.The time is fast approaching for her to decide what she can live with, and where some of her lines are drawn.





	The Hand in the Wasteland

_Oooh baby, you're kisses taste so sour_  
_Just a shot of amaretto would make 'em sweet_  
_You know, there was a time when all I wanted to do was love you_  
_Even though you made me feel like a piece of meat_  
  
_You say, you say, you say you wanna see my soul_  
_But I'mma, I'mma, I'mma keep my eyes closed_  
_'Cause where we, we, we are ain't so cool._  
  
  
Saidah Baba Talibah - "So Cool"

 

 

_Metallic sounds, rhythmless, echoed somewhere beyond the platform. The sand vomited up little creatures bearing superficial resemblance to the upper half of Zaros’s simulacrum, each a living mouthpiece whose brief existence revolved around speaking one word. With each word came a death and a new life, neither acknowledged or held to be of value by the being that spawned them. No sense of loss as they were swallowed again by the sand._

_The unknowable Jas was both in motion and without it - gears spinning, pausing, and reversing course in front of… a star? She hung suspended from nothing as the platform did._

_Blackness in any direction save the star's felt endless. Infinite. It was weighted with the sense that nothing interrupted it no matter how far one traveled into that blackness, and a feeling that presences dwelled within it._

_Coldly indifferent presences. No anger or malice from them, only possessed of a void as absolute as the one they inhabited._

_Strips of starlight chased shadows without impacting them. Both were molded into curled, sharp teeth by the entity before me, becoming marred as they traveled across little piles of sand._

_Dark and light. Shadows._

_“PROVE. OR BE NO MORE.”_

_Shadows over the sand, over me._

_Shadows occasionally moving independently of their source. Shadows existed everywhere, even in this incomprehensible place._

_“World Guardian.”_

_NO!_

I jerked, fragmented dream collapsing in on itself. The world condensed into something solid, familiar, the alien landscape arranging itself into mundane furniture. The shadows… well, those hadn’t stopped behaving strangely since Sliske’s “gift” had expanded my vision to include more of their nature. Despite the odd hints of movement, these were less ominous.

Close enough. Remnants of the dream sloughed away and I was grateful. I was home.

Home. My - _our_ \- bed. A silk-covered blanket. Warmth from Quen at my back.

Quen.

I smiled, eyes closing again, and turned to wrap an arm around him.

The feeling of _wrongness_ struck a moment before the voice shattered my happy illusion.

“Good morning, pet. Are you aware you snore?”

My eyes snapped open and I jerked away from the voice. Its source slid a leg over mine and grinned at me, amusement echoed in amber eyes.

Sliske was still unclothed as I was. He was also awake in _every_ respect, the leg’s movement over me pressing the evidence against my hip.

What little filter existed between my mind and mouth was absent now. “Why are you still here?”

He tried to look wounded and failed. “Add insult to injury? Leave you to luxuriate in all the recently vacated space without company?” He leaned into my hair and spoke against my neck, worming his body until it half-rested on top of me. “Wasteful.”

I lifted a hand to push him off but it ignored my wishes, finding the twin ridgelines at the back of his neck instead. I traced them with gentle fingertips and whispered into his ear.

“Go away.”

He laughed, bursts of breath tickling my neck. “Release me and I will.”

“No.”

I didn’t want to think too deeply about why I wasn’t angry at Sliske. Or about how little I’d looked forward to waking up alone. Or that I was relieved he’d escaped Saradomin-

The hand toying with his ridges stopped and slid to his shoulder, pushing him away. “You _harum zadeh!”_

The push did nothing; his face remained buried in my hair. “The warm light of dawn makes you even more beautiful-”

 _“FUCK. OFF.”_  
  
Sliske laughed, the sound made nasal as he licked just beneath my ear. “No sweet endearments for you. That’s my girl.”

Planting a foot on the bed and pivoting, I turned and slid out from under Sliske.

He ignored the hint, wrapping an arm around me and pulling until I rested atop him. “If you insist, Razwan. I’d argue that events are _at least_ as entertaining when you’re in control.”

Slapping him would hurt my hand more than his face. He’d probably enjoy it, too. I settled for digging nails into his chest and snarling at him.

“Void. The fucking. Contract.”

He hissed, inhaling through his teeth, and his eyes went half-lidded. “Mmmmm. ‘Hurt me, Razwan. Just hurt me.’”

I relaxed my fingers, straightened the ones in my right, and slapped him.

My palm thrummed its displeasure and I swore.

He laughed again, this time squirming beneath me. “Riling you up never ceases to result in pleasure for me. Pet, you are an _unremitting_ source of delight. _Harder,_ World Guar-”

“What in Duzakh’s depths is _wrong_ with you?”

“With _me?”_ He scoffed, some of the playfulness draining away. “When I address a demon, I do so in Infernal, Chthonian, or Avernic. I speak Kharidian when I pass through that overgrown merchant stall northwest of here. The most fruitful conversations take place when you speak the native language.”

“You don’t speak Pollnivnean.” _Does he speak Pollnivnean?_

He snorted, the ghost of his grin returning as his eyes traveled south of my face. “My interest in Pollnivneach has been centered upon one person, pet - you.”

His fingers slid through my hair. “You speak cruelty, my girl. You speak in thrills sought, limits exceeded. Mostly,” he shifted beneath me, “you speak with your body. It’s how you interact with the world, the pleasure you offer it and payment you demand from it.”

Sliske curled up and buried his face against my neck, his breath hot against my ear. “It’s a very pleasant language, and I am a very,” his tongue found the spot below my ear again, _“cunning linguist.”_

My voice wasn’t quite steady. “Void it. The contract. The _contract,_ Sliske.”

“Very well.” He nipped my ear and I swallowed back a moan. “On one condition.”

“No conditions, just void the fucking-”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I will void our agreement if you agree to enter into a new one with me.”

I jerked away from his attentions and glared at him. “No more contracts.”

He bared his teeth in a full grin. “The presence of one is nonnegotiable, pet. It’s entirely too useful a tool for me to ignore.”

“Then what do you want now?”

Sliske toyed with some of my hair until it fell across his face and he closed his eyes, making an appreciative sound. “That’s the mystery, Razwan. I’m not telling you what’s in this contract. You agree to enter into it, formally, then I negate the previous one and you’re obligated to accept the new.” He chuckled softly. “Blind as I was with that strip of silk over my eyes last night.”

“I don’t trust you.” Claws trailed up my spine and I ignored them.

He lifted an eye ridge. “Somehow I never tire of hearing that.” His smile was warmer, softer now. “That’s something I’ve come to appreciate about dealing with you. You don’t expect better of me and I can’t possibly let you down. You say, ‘I don’t trust you,’ but it’s never been spoken in tones of disappointment.”

“I don’t want another contract with you.”

A slight rumble accompanied his voice. “You don’t have any choice. And consider the alternative, _aziz-am.”_ I blinked at the term. “Your current arrangement leaves you a liability to your dear Zamorak. You can’t _be trusted_ to protect anyone. A few words from me, and...” his hand lifted from my hair and wove a lazy circle before submerging again, “...your allegiances cannot possibly be upheld.”

I opened my mouth to speak but he surged forward and over, looming again. Thin amber irises stared into and beyond my eyes. The tension in him surpassed what was needed to hold himself poised above me.

“You don’t trust me.”

“Never.” I didn't. _I don’t..._

“I’ve never lied to you.”

I snorted. “You just did.”

Sliske shook his head. “I’ve done many things with and to you. But…”

He leaned in and kissed me, regarding me with those amber eyes when he pulled away again. “...one thing I’ve never done is lie to you, Razwan.” Calculation colored his grin. “I’ll return tonight. Think about my offer.”

Though I saw shadows coalescing over him, nothing felt unusual save the slight chill. I felt him against my skin, then he grew insubstantial and I didn’t.

He was gone.

 

………..

 

 _Damn homie I'm so tore_  
_And I don't think I'm ever gone smoke no more_  
_And I don't think I'm ever gone drink no more_  
_But fuck it, bartender you can give me one more_  
  
Lil' Kim - "Put Your Lighters Up"

 

I stepped from the lodestone in Varrock, turning north and entering the southern gate.

I hadn’t stopped thinking back to every interaction I’d had with Sliske since we’d first met. Walking north up the street, I kept worrying at the past like a half-starved desert wolf at a bone.

_“We will not kill Guthix. You have my word.”_

“We” hadn’t. It’d been him alone.

_“Why should I trust you?”_

_“Well now, I don't have an answer for that. In fact, I do. You shouldn't.”_

I didn’t. _I didn’t._

_“A Mahjarrat? In love?”_

And that last hadn’t been an outright denial, had it? He didn’t love, of that I was certain-

_A lie._

I shoved the thoughts aside with an odd stomach lurch and approached Aris’s tent. Light purple fabric rustled heavily as I pulled the front flap open and peered in.

Aris sat behind a table, fingers dividing gold coins into small piles. She counted quietly, alternating between her figuring and a bowl of apple slices next to her elbow.

“Seventy, seventy-five.” _Crunch._ “Eighty.” She looked up, fingers pinching a ripe slice and waving it in a welcoming circle. “Mornin’, Razwan.”

I stepped in with a mumbled greeting and her green eyes grew serious. “You look like someone read you your fortune and it’s all coming up weeds.”

Sitting at the other side of the table, I dipped a hand into my kit and withdrew a handful of gold coins, laying them between her neat piles. “Not yet. I hope you don’t see weeds for me; I just got finished yelling one out of my house.”

She bit off another chunk of apple and narrowed her eyes at me. “Mmmhmm. Yelling one out of your bed, more like.” She scooped gold aside with her free hand - mine included, and without counting - withdrawing a deck of cards from behind the table. “What do you want to know?”

I lifted my shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “The future.”

She tilted her head and derision made her tone raspier. “Really. Here I was thinking you wanted Varrock weather update.”

The shrug was repeated. The snark drained from Aris as quickly as it’d risen. “How bad?”

“Bad.”

She sighed, the breath deep, and dropped the last nugget of apple back into the bowl. She moved the cards to a more central position on the table. “Scoot in. You paid well enough.” She crooked a pair of fingers at me.

I scooted in and she picked up the cards. Worried as I was, the ease with which she accepted me at her table was puzzling. “The last time you read my fortune it wasn’t very comfortable for you.”

She side-shuffled the cards, deft fingers lining them back up as she made a careless gesture with the now-free hand. “You paid more this time.”

“Oh.”

I supposed that was reasonable.

Aris set the deck down and drew a card, placing it face-up in front of me. “The Battlemage.”

_Staves cards? Don’t break out the good wine or anything._

She withdrew another and set it next to the first, face-up. “You. The Vanguard.”

I stared at the armored fighter on my card, curious.

She pulled a third, glancing at it with an expression I couldn’t define before she placed it face-up next to the Vanguard. “The Trickster.”

_Battlemage and Trickster. Of course._

She pulled more cards, laying one over each of the three and pausing. “Chains. Three chains.” She looked up at me from beneath graying, frazzled eyebrows.

I shrugged at her again.

Aris flicked her fingers in a half-practiced, half-unconscious gesture and drew again. She placed the card atop the Battlemage and Chains. “The Spirit.”

Another one, this atop the Trickster and Chains. “The Mind.”

A final one came to rest atop Vanguard and Chains.

The Scythe.

She shook her head and drew twice, placing each card between Vanguard and the other two.

Aris sighed. “Hearts.”

We stared quietly at the cards as foot traffic passed outside the tent.

I looked up at her. “What does it mean?”

She pinched the sides of the deck, setting the remainder of the cards on the table and folding one hand atop the other in front of herself. “You’re bound to two by love - romantic persuasion - but also by something else. The same holds true for both of them. They love you but there’s more to it.”

Aris reached out and tapped one of the Chains cards. “Not pure. Addiction, maybe, or some plot that also involves you three. The Trickster appeals to the way you think. The Battlemage appeals to your instincts.”

“And the Scythe?”

Her lips thinned. “Sacrifice or danger. Loss.”

I swallowed. “For who?”

One of her thin hands waved at the arrangement before me. “For you.”

I looked up at her, heart sinking. “What can I do?”

She shook her head and waved me away. “Nothing you can do. None of the cards were Lesser, only Greater. You can’t escape it through any normal means.”

 _Normal means._ “What about abnormal means?”

She waved again and I stood, but remained still until she looked at me again.

Aris’s voice was solemn. “There are only two options to escape a fate signalled in Greater cards alone.”

I waited.

She looked away from me and back to the cards. “Kill one or both of them. Or die.”

 

………..

 

I stood outside the tent. People swerved around me, some muttering their irritation as they passed.

They didn’t matter.

_“Kill one or both of them. Or die.”_

I felt an anxious tension wind its way through my body at the thought.

_No. There’s something else I can do._

I could take a page out of Sliske’s book. The confines of normalcy never applied to him because he refused to acknowledge them. He changed the manner in which the game was arranged, or changed the nature of the game itself.

_There is something I can do._

Equal parts hesitation and determination, I moved from the middle of the walkway and began chanting a teleport spell.

_I can lie._

The question was whether I could do it without accidentally fulfilling what'd been foretold in Aris’s cards.

And without dying.


End file.
